「Activity」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Debotri Chatterjee: Calligraphy

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For my CIP, I chose to take private lessons in shodo (brush-style calligraphy). The first time I went over to sensei’s house, I expected to simply talk about future lessons and figure out timings for class, etc. To my surprise, I soon found myself staring down at a piece of washi, brush in hand, with both my host mother and sensei looking on expectantly. I wasn’t completely a stranger to the brush, but I’d never done any sort of calligraphy before in my life. Realizing this, sensei showed me how to make a few basic strokes, and then I was on my own again.

This set the tone for all future classes. I’d come in with some kanji I wanted to practice, or sensei would let me pick a phrase from a massive book of kanji and then I’d try to get my writing as close as possible to sensei’s sample. Shodo is a pretty solitary activity – there isn’t much hand-holding or even teaching, really; all your teacher can do is suggest improvements for next time, and then it’s up to you. Which means that in a typical shodo class, there aren’t too many opportunities for conversation.

However, my shodo sensei wasn’t running a formal class; she teaches shodo because she likes it, and likes teaching people. Because of the informal tone of the class, I didn’t get to practice using keigo at all, but I like to think that I had several very interesting conversations with people from very different walks of life – from elementary school kids, to housewives, to even Buddhist monks! Despite being the new ‘gaijin’ in class, it didn’t take me very long to feel very at home among everyone. One thing I noticed in particular was how quickly everyone dropped their formalities around me and began talking to me in casual speech, as they would to a friend.

What did I learn about the Japanese language/culture through my CIP? There are countless things I could talk about, but one aspect I found particularly interesting is the interplay between the usage of different levels of formality in speech. Using different levels comes easily to me, because my native languages (Bengali and Hindi) have a similar speech pattern (with informal, formal and honorific levels). It was interesting to me how similar the usage of these different levels is, comparing Japanese to say, Bengali. For example, in both languages, I’ve noticed that little children can get away with using informal speech, no matter who they’re talking to, but as they get older, it’s no longer acceptable to, say, approach a stranger and begin talking to them at an informal level. Another thing I found particularly interesting is that sometimes, a means of expressing displeasure/disappointment/anger in these languages is to suddenly switch to a more formal way of speaking. My CIP was one of the things this semester that showed me how to use the knowledge I have about other languages, and channel that into learning yet another, just by virtue of understanding the basis behind the language.

Aside from becoming somewhat decent with my brush, I’ve also learnt so much just by being able to interact with people I normally wouldn’t have the chance to meet. My sensei was one of the nicest and most encouraging people I’ve met in Kyoto, and I appreciate how at home she made me feel. Shodo class was one of the highlights of my week through the semester, and I’m so glad I chose to pursue it.

Christine La: Assistant English Teacher at Kamigyo Middle School

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As my CIP, I chose to become an Assistant English Teacher at Kamigyo Middle School, near Doshisha University. I met with students interested in learning and improving their English once a week for an hour, and helped them read English more naturally and practice speaking.

The main idea I had behind choosing to teach English was to gain experience for the JET program, which I intend to apply to after I graduate. At my home university, I would often attend exchange lunches with Japanese students and we would help each other with learning about our respective languages and cultures. In that time, I found I really enjoyed teaching English to others, though being a teacher never really crossed my mind. However, after coming to Japan, I wanted any chance to return, and was reminded of my love for teaching when we talked about CIPs.

In that regard, I suppose it was a natural procedure from there to try out being an English Assistant, before I really decided on whether or not I would devote up to five years of my life to teaching my native language. When I first entered Kamigyo Middle School, I was pretty nervous; I was an A class student, with the bare minimum language ability to enter KCJS, and had a bad habit of using casual speech regardless of my listener’s social status or familiarity with me. With that, my journey started with five young girls of varying English-speaking abilities, and five odd little readings. I was told to listen to the girls recite the passages, and then to well, fix them. The rush to start was daunting, but the hour and a half passed by almost too quickly. I hardly felt prepared enough, and I probably wasn’t as helpful as I wanted to be. I couldn’t even remember all the girls’ names. Yet as discouraged as I was, I remembered one of them telling me when our fifteen minutes were up:

“Your help was really clear and easy to understand. Thank you.”

I suppose that this is the reason all teachers can put up with the frustrations of their work. Over the next couple of visits, I began to notice that perhaps, just the slightest, I was making a difference. Not only to them in regards to their recitation, but in myself by being more prepared, by knowing what to do, how to help, and being more confident in myself. I found ways to make the experience more fun, even if it was just rainbow colored pens, and I found ways to tweak my teaching style to the student, such as speaking quieter to the shyer students or being excitable about accomplishments for the outgoing ones. I started to realize that Japanese students needed a lot of positive reinforcement for their abilities, probably because of the modest culture and strict school structure they were raised in. Teaching, even in such brief intervals for each student, had a strong impact on me.

However, I also felt a lot of frustration during my CIP. Because I only had about fifteen minutes with each student, I never got to know each individual very well. Some of the students seemed interested in learning more, but they were quick to leave because of the teachers coming by at the end of the time limit. I think I would’ve been able to help a lot more had we had more time together or to be working on more broad English conversational skills. I was also quite surprised to learn how drastic the level of English ability could change between school years. A lot of my second year middle schoolers were a lot more capable of general conversation than the first years, who hadn’t even learned past tense yet. I would’ve really liked to see how English was taught in the classroom, as well as maybe seen what would’ve happened if I met more often or for longer with each student, and done different activities with each of them.

Though at times my CIP was frustrating, I really gained a lot of valuable experience from it. Teaching, while difficult at times, continues to interest me as a path I hope to take in the future. I wish the best for my students as well, in school and in learning English.

Hai Anh Pham: Kyoto University's Chorus

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The emails that I exchanged with the Chorus’s representative gave me an impression that the circle was an all-accepting space where even the non-experienced are welcomed: “Thank you for your interest. We await you at the first practice. And yes, we are thrilled that you are bringing friends. Bring them all, be it 5 or 10 people!!” 

And really, the people were as nice as I had pictured them to be. On the first day, a guy came all the way to where I and Yuki got lost to pick us up. After the first practice was over, we newcomers were put into the spotlight, so all the members could get to know us and sing their welcoming song. Throughout my time with them, I continued to feel the circle’s attempt to create a sense of belonging for all its members: free after-practice meals, weekend gatherings, and the funnest of all, the exaggerated, variety show-like reaction words we always give together when someone is doing an announcement. I wish I had more time to interact and make friends with everyone. My host family was far away from Kyodai, so I couldn’t participate much in the bonding activities that the circle created for its members.

Joining a circle where everyone was welcomed first gave me the assumption that the quality of real practices would be mediocre. I was wrong. Even though the songs we had to sing were really difficult, the conductor, part leaders, and most people really knew what they were doing. Not only that, they went out of their way to guide newbies like me, whether it was the breathing and diaphragm training exercises at the beginning, or the melody, beats, and nuances of each music bar. At first, it was a bit irritating to me, because their over-guidance indicated that they thought I knew absolutely nothing. However, I realized after a while that they were just fulfilling their roles of senpai, to welcome and help and instruct, especially considering my barriers not being a Japanese. And after months of going to the Chorus, although I did not have much opportunities to interact with the members outside of practice, the care that they showed toward me really made me feel like a kouhai myself, that I belonged as part of this Chorus.

Yuewei WANG: Life in Kyoto

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For fall semester 2015, I participated in the production of a bi-monthly informational journal called Life in Kyoto under Kokoka Kyoto International Community House. I volunteered for the Japanese version, English version, and Chinese version. The production cycle is eight weeks long, and themes of articles are decided based on the season of the year and aimed to help foreigners know Kyoto better and navigate their lives in Japan. 

For the Japanese meeting, there are about twenty people, and the age of participants range from undergraduate students to senior men in their sixties. Because of the nature of the production, this volunteer experience involve a lot of talking about tiny details, from grammar to choice of words, which I appreciate the most, since it gives the chance to experience how Japanese people actually talk and collaborate, and I can ask any question I want no matter how trivial it seems. As for the English meeting, number of participants can range from ten people to three people. We correct grammar and making sentences easier to understand. Since English is my second language and Japanese is my third language, this volunteer experience really helps me with improving both languages’ skills. 

During the production of December-January edition, I was lucky enough that other members in the group trust me and assign me and Nicole the task of writing an article about new year celebrations in Japan and America. We wrote the article in English and Japanese together, and I can never forget after I read out our article aloud during the meeting, there was like twenty seconds of silence. Then one of the senior men said that it is better for a Japanese person to go over our draft before we talk about the draft as a group.

Through volunteering at LIK, I learnt a lot about Japanese culture. Before coming to Japan, I had the idea that Japanese, like Chinese, are collectivist and they have amazing traditional culture. Spending three months in Kyoto, I gradually realized how shallow my understanding was. To begin with, being collectivists means that uniting as a group is crucial, yet the way Japanese perceives one individual is very interesting. One’s gender, age, and occupation can determine how one talks and is talked to. At LIK meetings, such sophisticated system of utilizing language is very evident, since people of various gender, age, and occupation are present. Even though most of my American friends here hold a not so positive view about this “classifying” system, I really appreciate how much control that I can have over the language to show respect, distance, and/or intimacy.

I want to tell potential participants of LIK a few things. First, Japanese meetings and English meetings do take a lot of time, approximately 12 to 16 hours per month, and it could be more if you work on the Chinese version as well, but knowledge gained from reading into the lines and comparing one work with the other is definitely worth it. Also, you can learn how to interact with people from different age groups from undergraduate students to salary men, from housewives to retired men in LIK, which is something most other CIP cannot provide you. Lastly, no matter what CIP you choose to do, it is actually very beneficial if you take the full advantage of being a foreigner, which allows you to ask whatever questions you want, and eventually helps you navigate in Japanese society more and more swiftly.

Lindsey Henderson: SOIC (Sodefure International Community) Dance Circle

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Sodefure is a “Kyoto-style dance” which incorporates a variety of traditional Japanese dance styles and imagery into its routine. SOIC is one branch of a large Sodefure Community which has participating circles across a number of university campuses in Kyoto. Each group must learn the primary dance for Sodefure as these individual groups will come together and dance as a single group at festivals held in Kyoto. The largest of these events has over 1000 members dancing at once, the result of which is a beautiful and uniquely synchronized performance that is truly amazing to watch.

One of the particularly unique qualities of the SOIC Circle is that it is primarily directed towards international students. This means that I got to interact with a variety of students from around the world who were studying abroad in Kyoto. Naturally, there were also experienced Japanese Sodefure members present to help guide, teach, and interact with the international students.

What I ended up learning the most from by participating in this circle was not from the dance practice itself, but from watching the Japanese students interact with the foreign students. There was an incredible range in Japanese language ability among the study abroad students, and the Japanese students were not fluent in English. However, this didn’t deter anyone in the least from trying to build friendships across the language barriers. Members who were more proficient in Japanese helped out other students who were beginners, and we worked to teach the Japanese students new words in English. When all else failed, we simply pulled our cell phone dictionaries or tried our best to mime what we wanted to convey.

The most fascinating aspect to me was the casual atmosphere that arose incredibly quickly. Japanese students often started addressing new foreign students in the polite form (think desu/-masu), but soon relaxed to using casual speech and their home dialects within the span of one practice. The keigo and kouhai/senpai relationships which are so ubiquitous throughout Japanese-only circles was seemingly non-existent. The formal phrases I had practiced before going to the first meetup turned out to be unnecessary. People tended towards using first names instead of last ones, and due to the lack of formalities, it was difficult to tell who the leader was, or if there even was one at all. When the Japanese students gave me my own nickname to be used within the group, I fully came to understand how much they wanted to break down any walls of formality, and I started to feel really accepted into the group. I think that being part of a group that was directed towards foreigners allowed Japanese students to drop formalities more quickly than they can in other situations.

Being able to watch this dynamic and participate in it myself made me realize just how eager and willing people are to make international friends. In Japan, where many of the social interactions can be formal, even to the point of being outright cold, it was fascinating to watch how warm and open the Japanese students were when trying to break down the barriers between themselves and the foreign students. Having the opportunity to become part of such a large community has been an invaluable experience for me.

Dera Luce: Nursery School Volunteer

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Every Thursday, I volunteer at Zenryuji Hoikuen. Hoikuen means nursery school or daycare. Each week I get to join lots of cute children in their playtime! The kids range in age from several months to six years old. Playtime has usually already begun by the time I arrive. The caretakers interact with the kids but mostly supervise. I am not given any instruction on how to interact with the kids, so I take a more hands-on approach. For example, when I arrive, it’s not uncommon for a child to run up to me, take me by the hand, and lead me to their area of the sandbox. Then they will ask me to partake in their imaginary food, play on their imaginary boat, or in one interesting case, tend to their imaginary cemetery. I love being around these creative kids. If you think learning Japanese is difficult, imagine being in a room full of children who are talking all at once and attempting to understand their child vocabulary. The children say a lot of interesting things, and I’ve learned new things by interacting with them.

Even on days when I am tired, I can’t help but grin as soon as I walk into the nursery and the children notice my arrival. My spirits are lifted as they yell “Kita!” and other welcoming phrases. Some of them have asked me what days I come to the nursery, and know to look for me every Thursday. After play time, the children clean up their toys, and I help them.

Due to low pay and high turn-over rate, there are not a lot of hoikushi, or nursery school teachers, working in Japan. For this reason, entering one’s child into a daycare is extremely competitive, and there are long waiting lists. Women sometimes sign up for the waiting list as soon as they find out they are pregnant! I knew this before I started volunteering at the nursery, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to have any discussions with the nursery school teachers about their work. I mostly interact only with the children, and my volunteer work is very self-directed.

Nicolle Bertozzi: Kubota Birendo Sudare

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This semester for my Community Involvement Project, I have been working with the Kubotas, a family of Kyoto artisans who make sudare screens for private homes and temples. Once a week, I go to their shop near Shijo, where I learn about the craft of sudare making and, through conversations with the artisans themselves, about life as an artisan in one of the most historical cities in the world.

One of the things that has stood out most clearly to me through working with the Kubotas is how closely their line of work connects them with traditional culture of Japan. In a country as modernized as Japan, it can be difficult sometimes to find traces of the culture’s long and rich history. When I’ve asked Japanese friends about their exposure to some of the most known traditional elements of Japanese culture—the kinds of traditional elements like shodo calligraphy and sado tea ceremony that are often presented to foreigners during cultural exchange events—their responses are largely of non-interest. For the artisans of Kyoto, however, this is not the case. The very nature of their work forces them to confront the divide between traditional and modern lifestyles in Japan on a daily basis. And as a result of this, they often find themselves exploring other aspects of traditional culture, aspects that have no connection to their particular craft.

Through working with the Kubotas on my own sudare, through talking with them as I bound the bamboo together strip-by-strip with twisting threads, I found that our conversations often tended to drift to this topic. Over a cup of matcha tea one week, we wound up talking about the tradition of the tea ceremony, something that I had been asked to participate in for cultural exchange events many times but still knew next to nothing about. When I mentioned this, Shinji Kubota, the oldest son and next in line to inherit the family business, began to tell me about how working as an artisan had inspired him to study tea ceremony. Although most Japanese had very little interest in the ceremony, had never even experienced one themselves, he found the ceremony beautiful and has been studying it for many years. Mayu, Shinji’s younger sister, also mentioned how central their background as traditional artisans was in sparking their shared interest in the ceremony.

When I came in the next week, I found the tatami room cleared and prepared for a tea ceremony. A piece of calligraphy hung in the tokonoma, beneath which sat a flower arrangement. Water boiled away in a kettle over the fire of the sunken ro hearth. Shinji and Mayu took me through the ceremony, explaining how every proper tea ceremony had a theme, which the host decided upon and would then carefully select each utensil to match. Through inquiring about the particular calligraphy piece hanging in the tokonoma, for example, you would be able to work your way through the various connections it shared with the other utensils of the ceremony. This ability to appreciate details is one of the most important elements of the ceremony.

The care with which Shinji and Mayu then walked me through the ceremony was truly amazing. It was clear how much they respected the ceremony’s tradition, how much they wanted to do justice to its history. Which of course connects to the way they treated their own craft as well. Throughout this whole semester, I have noticed lots of very tiny ways in which the Kubotas honor the history and tradition of their craft. They explained to me, for example, how the natural darkening of bamboo material over time is something beautiful, something worth noticing and appreciating. Which I don’t think is something I would have thought about in that way before.

My time with the Kubotas this semester has broadened my understanding of traditional Japanese culture as it exists in the modern age. Through making my own sudare, I have come to appreciate the incredible level of craftsmanship that goes into the making and maintaining of these traditional crafts. And through exploring the connections that exist between those who are continuing Japan’s craft tradition and those who are carrying on other aspects of the traditional culture, I have come to see the degree to which these traditions are still very much alive, still being constantly innovated.

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Angel Mui: Shamisen Lessons + Cooking School Lessons

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For me choosing and settling down on a suitable CIP had been a long process. I took shamisen lessons for the first half of the semester and ended up taking cooking lessons as my CIP instead. Since I am in Kyoto, at first I had my mind set on learning some form of traditional Japanese art as a CIP, which I eventually settled down on learning the instrument, shamisen. Through my Japanese teacher, I was introduced to a shamisen instructor and she offered to give me free lessons once a week. The lessons took place in a small room filled with various instruments (shamisens and kotos, etc) on the 2nd floor of a jazz cafe/bar near Teramachi Shijo. The lessons were not actual one to one lessons, but was more similar to a recital. There are usually 4-8 people in the room putting together and practicing the same song. For me, because I had no previous experience with the instrument prior to coming to Japan, this type of lesson did not suit me well. Although it was interesting to be able to play along with the group while improvising, I felt that I needed something more to fulfill my goal of doing something that suits me while still being able to interact and be integrated into a group.

I decided to take a Japanese cooking class at a cooking school called La Carrière, located at Kawaramachi Sanjo. I really enjoyed learning how to make not only Japanese dishes, but also Western dishes and learning how to bake cakes while interacting with the teachers and other students. The program that I enrolled in allows me to take most basic courses from their schedule, excluding the more advance Wagashi and Kyoto Cuisine classes. The classes are taught fully in Japanese and being the only non-Japanese student there, I really had to learn a lot of cooking-related vocabulary in order to keep up with the class. However, the students and teachers are very welcoming and did not treat me in any special way simply because I am a foreigner. Usually there are 2-3 people sharing a station and although we usually do not talk much while we prepare the ingredients and cook; we do make conversations afterwards while enjoying the meal we have just prepared.

Although I am in Kyoto for only one semester, I have learned a lot from my CIP. One of the most important thing is to know what suits you and what does not. If something does not suit you well and does not work out even after you have really put a great deal of effort into it, it is alright to start anew. For me, starting anew actually takes a lot more courage to do than to stay with an unsatisfactory situation. From my previous CIP experience, I learned how to properly quit. The necessary steps and the carefully presentation of the prepared speech, along with the tone of voice are all of importance. Regardless of what reasons were behind the decision, I learned that it is important to take responsibility and carefully end and say farewell without leaving any hard feelings. In other words, tie it with a good end.

That being said, I then moved on to another teacher-student environment, the cooking lessons. This time however, I was not only a student but also a consumer because I actually paid for the lessons. One thing that I have observed is that the level of politeness for the instructor is still present while the status of the two parties remain approximately the same. The teacher receives respect from the student but she is also the service provider. The students acknowledges the teacher, but they are also consumers. When compared to the shamisen classroom, the level of respect for the teacher who is wiser or more experienced in the subject is not as apparent. The atmosphere in the cooking classroom is, in other words, more balanced and relaxing because we are all on the same level. The social hierarchy does not really exist in this sort of environment.

Although there have been ups and downs, I have really thankful that I had taken the shamisen lessons instead of started with the cooking lessons. The ability to compare the learning environment of the two very different areas of skills and the different background of the students and the atmosphere created gave me much more insight into the Japanese culture.

 

Chelsea Hayashi: Doshisha Tennis Circle + Kyodai Tennis Club

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My biggest motivation and goal in studying abroad in Japan this semester was not only improving my Japanese, but also meeting and befriending Japanese students. I wanted to actually be a part of the Japanese world that someone my age in Japan experiences—not just one of a foreigner! As silly as it sounds, one thing I wanted to accomplish by the end of this semester was learn to text in Japanese. Yes, I could learn hundreds of kanji and grammar in class, but something as mundane as texting to meet up with a friend is something I could only learn by doing. It was these little, daily-life things that I wanted to gain from my CIP experience.

So, with all of this in mind, I chose to participate in a tennis circle at Doshisha as well as practice with the Kyodai tennis team. I’m on the varsity team at my home university, so this was not only a perfect way to continue playing a sport I love but also (hopefully) a way to stay in shape for when I return for my season.

I’ve learned a lot through my experiences, especially about the formalities and the ways of communication. Through the Japanese classes I have taken, I’d known about the importance and common use of keigo, but this was my first time utilizing it with people my age. Within Japanese colleges there is a strict and prevalent senpai/kohai relationship. In other words, “respect your elders” even if your “elders” are only one year ahead of you in college. Although in my experiences I was rarely treated as either a senpai or a kohai (I was just the abroad student who spoke enough Japanese but wasn’t Japanese), I still learned more about the appropriate levels of speech formality through my CIP than I ever had in a classroom. In getting in contact with various tennis circles, I had to send countless emails jam-packed with keigo, and I was surprised to receive emails back that had the same high formality—in America I feel like it’s bizarre to continue conversation with a peer in the same formal manner that you’d be talking to a professor. The Japanese peers I was with often called each other by last name (another distinct cultural distinction), although everyone still called me Chelsea-san. My Japanese peers were also more shy and reserved than I was used to, the high level of politeness off-putting to me at first, but I soon realized that this isn’t because they didn’t like me. Rather, Japanese interactions just start off a lot more formal and become more casual as they develop and strengthen. When a peer stops using keigo with you, that’s when you know they’ve accepted you as a friend.

I’m happy to say that through my CIP I’ve made friends, and I can now text in Japanese. However small of an accomplishment this may sound as, I feel good about it, and I’m grateful that my CIP was able to provide more learning than possible in any classroom.

 

Darbus Oldham: Irish Dance

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For my CIP, I am doing Irish dance. To provide a bit of background to that, I started Irish step dancing when I was in elementary school, have performed with a group that does a variety of styles of Irish and Scottish dancing for the past four years, and also do Irish ceili dancing for fun. Here in Kyoto, I’m doing two styles: set dancing, which is generally done with a group of eight, and modern step dancing, which is individual. In the set dancing class, which meets twice a month, we learn and do two or three dances each class. The monthly modern style class is divided into two halves: soft shoe and hard shoe. Irish (and Scottish) soft shoes are flexible, lightweight leather-soled shoes, whereas hard shoes are more like tap shoes. In each class, we work on a couple dances of each type, doing a mixture of learning new steps and reviewing old ones.

In the step dancing class, I’ve also had the opportunity to teach a couple of dance steps I know. This was an interesting challenge in and of itself, as I do not have a great deal of experience teaching step dancing in English, let alone Japanese, and so figuring out the best way to explain the footwork and timing and answer questions was definitely difficult. I ended up simply demonstrating the step or particularly challenging portions of it a number of times, which combined with some explanation generally ended up working.

On top of the regular set dancing class, one weekend there was a big event called a ceili. There was live music, and there were about a hundred people in attendance, a number of them from Tokyo, Osaka, and other places. The dances were a mixture of ones we had been practicing in class, ones we hadn’t, and one that I have done in the States.

In addition to the dancing, my CIP has also proved an opportunity for a wide variety of interesting conversations during breaks in the class and after class at dinner. For example, there have been discussions of differences between dialects and word order in English and Japanese, and I’ve learned a number of Japanese onomatopoeia and tried to explain a number of odd words and terms in English.

While Irish dance may seem like a strange choice for a CIP, it has worked out really well, I think in large part because I was hoping to dance here regardless of whether it was my CIP. I have previously found social dance to be a good way to meet people where I’m from and at school, and I was pleasantly unsurprised to find that to be the case here as well.

All that being said, I do have a cautionary note for future KCJS students looking at these blogs for inspiration for their own CIP: If you don’t have previous Irish dance experience (or maybe English country dance or contra for the set dancing), this is not the CIP for you. I would have been utterly lost had I not had some previous knowledge of set dancing and particularly of step dancing.